English wine

Twenty years ago, or even ten, British expatriates returning to a residence abroad, who took a present of English wine to friends in continental Europe, particularly those in the wine-producing areas of France and Germany, Italy or Spain, would have been regarded as overly patriotic or utterly whimsical. However, advances in wine-making technology and an awareness of which strengths to build upon, are seeing vast improvements in terms of quality.

England will never be a major wine-producer as far as quantity goes, but if grown on well-chosen and sheltered south-facing slopes its vines can produce white wines which measure well against those from similar areas abroad. In 1985, there were 430 hectares (1,060 acres) of vineyards, not all used for wine production. By 1995, there were well over 1,000 hectares (2,470 acres). There are now some 500 vineyards in England, plus 20 or so more in Wales.

At a breakfast-tasting organised by the English Wine Producers in London on 9 September over 60 wines from nine vineyards were on display. They included sparkling wines; dry, oak-aged dry and medium-dry whites; two rosé, half-a-dozen red, and three Late Harvest dessert wines. Most were 1997 vintage, but a few were from 1993, 1994, 1995 and 1996.

Tom Stevenson, the author of The New Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia (1997) says the fate of English wine will be settled in the 21st Century. He says that England’s wine-makers will first have to grub up the unexciting Müller-Thurgau and Seyval Blanc grapes they currently rely upon, and in particular get rid of the many off-puttingly named French and German hybrids that blanket the country. Stevenson calls on English wine-makers to develop their own specialities, and he himself sees the best future in bottle-fermented sparkling wines - as after all England abounds in the same kind of chalk soils found in Champagne.

Certainly the sparkling wines using the classic grapes, such as Nyetimber’s Blanc de Blancs Brut 1992 (100% Chardonnay) and Barkham Manor’s imaginatively-named Barkham Bubbly (Pinot Noir, Bacchus) command the highest prices at £15 and £17.50 respectively, but combinations involving Muller Thurgau and Seyval at £7.99 to £9.99 are still eminently quaffable, as long as one does not pretend they are a direct substitute for champagne.

At the moment, the economics of wine-growing are working against English wine sold in Britain. Because of high British taxes on alcohol, these wines can be bought much more cheaply almost everywhere on the continent and especially in the hypermarkets of Calais. This means many producers have to rely on subsidiary sources of income to be financially viable - such as running guided tours for visitors and establishing on-site restaurants, and in gift-shops and the sale of herbs and garden produce. At least one Kentish vineyard is currently “in administration” because of cash-flow difficulties.

English wines are now taken seriously and served, not only in obvious prestige publicity outlets (The House of Commons and the British Embassy in Paris, and most tactfully at the American Embassy in London) but are making successful appearances at trade fairs and in international wine competitions. British Airways bought 15,000 cases of 48 quarter-bottles from Chapel Down Wines of Tenterden in Kent, one of the few large wineries without a sizable vineyard of its own, which buys in from some 20 contracted wine-producers in the south of England, with quality control ensured on a consultancy basis.

Winemaker David Cowderoy of Chapel Down says the white wine in the quarter-bottles offered to B.A. travellers is specially chosen to meet the fact that alcohol consumed at altitude tastes more acid than at ground level, among other reasons because the mucous membranes in the nose dry out in the artificial atmosphere inside an aircraft. Quarter-bottles are now also welcomed generally in pubs, as they allow landlords to serve well-kept whites instead of pouring from long-opened and often warm full-size bottles, a practice sadly all too frequent in country pubs.

Another trend leading to improved marketing and better English wines on offer is the Heritage system whereby cooperative groups have formed to produce bulk-blended wines in sufficient quantity and at relatively inexpensive prices to deserve a place on supermarket shelves. But again, it will be in the single vineyard products from producers such as Denbies, with 265 acres on the North Downs and thus probably England’s largest estate, and Three Choirs Vineyards of Gloucester, that English wines will be judged abroad.